starlight run: Travel

Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

After Badlands; thru Minnesota, Wisonsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio

My beautiful co-driver, spelling me for a while

Entering Minnesota and its crappy roads

Lovely Wisconsin

Entering Chicago

Comiskey Park, home of White Sox

Friday, May 8, 2009

toward Ely, NV

Carson City, where some long lost cousin of my buddy, Bill Gottschalk in Michigan, is moving to greener pastures.

Carson City casino. One of several million casino's all across Nevada.

Nice building, restored to a fine state.

Fabulous scenery as we took Route 50, the loneliest highway apparently, according to local lore. Straight roads where speeds in excess of ..... high speeds ... are apparently possible.

a fellow traveller. We thought that we were tough driving across the desert in an old car. This dude is even tougher. Doing it by bike. The whole route 50 thing, came from a recommendation that we got in SFO. The previous owner of our car was Harold Williams, and his wife Susan. Susan told me that the best trip she ever took by road, was Rt 50 up to Salt Lake City. Seeing that we were taking an interstate, I-80, it seemed like a shame to miss out on a great route. So we followed Susan's advice and were glad.
Thank you Susan. You were right. It is a fabulous road.
Here is some video, to prove the point ... enjoy ...

Rally Across America begins - Sea Ranch, CA to Ely, NV

Leaving California coast on a rainy blustery foggy day

Only to climb toward Lake Tahoe in sunshine

The climb up the Sierra Madre's showed the still present snows at higher altitudes

Then the descent down ... after Lake Tahoe, toward Carson City

Outside Carson City, we find an In-and-Out burger joint. Had to try it. Fabulous burger. They are only on the west coast, make burgers from fresh (never frozen) meat and make fresh fries from whole potatoes each day.

back at the lodge - last day

another great macro, that Nikki took. Beautiful flowers out here ...

i think that I am taking a video .... on one of the trails ... they have 8 miles of trails along the coast here for you to use

the steps down to the beach

Porsche - Dangerous - Unstable ...... very funny babes ...

Some deer walked not 20 feet from us, until they notices us and disappeared into the long grass

return drive from Mendocino

gorgeous shot by Nikki of local flowers .... great macro shot

locals having some sun time on the beach

map is out, as we trek back to hotel

coastal view

nicer coastal view, again with nice shot of flowers in foreground by Nikki

M. cont'd

I love these shots Nikki took of the buildings .... some very interesting ones indeed. She is truly the photographer in the family. No idea what is going on with the man and woman above. Some angel dude with a big sword as usual I guess, about to whack somebody?

The birds almost look like they were designed as part of the roofline

This was a picnic table outside of the town tourist center. I have no idea what so perturbs me. Perhaps it has to do with drinking pepsi instead of wine for lunch (you have to be careful on these roads and treat them with the utmost respect or they can bite you --- see next shots --- therefore no wine until car keys put away for the night).

a parting shot of Mendocino and the beach there .... ethereal almost

the roads will bite ;-)

Mendocino - more

all of these wood sculptures come from drift wood, and look like plants, flowers, blending together in a very beautiful way

We had to promise Mr. Chocolate that the photo that Nikki took would not be used for commercial purposes. I guess you can't be too careful these days. The bear paw, that we purchased was delicious. Nikki (and the rest of america I am sure, as I am fairly ignorant of these terms) calls it a turtle, and is a mixture of chocolate, nuts and caramel. Gorgeous. Tasty stuff.

somebody's rather nice house

the wine store that was closed, but the owner was there, waiting for a call from his electrician, and invited us inside to purchase what we wanted. He had a really good supply of hard to fund cult wines, and smaller wineries offerings. A name to know. "thewineshoponline.com"

some of the locals ;-)

Mendocino continued

More shots of the savage coast ..... how quickly the day turned from sunny to blustery and foggy, as the waves increased in intensity

Above you see the fog quickly coming in

the town now is fogged over, as this photo that Nikki took of me shows. We had turned our backs to the town, taking pics one minute; the next minute we looked around and the town was disappearing before our eyes, just like that (as Tommy Cooper would say)